You can’t decide to implement organizational agility on a piecemeal basis one project at a time. Instead, you must create an environment where project managers and their teams are empowered, skilled and confident to deliver success in a continuously evolving world. How do you do that?

Talent Management

Many organizations have already begun to experience difficulty recruiting and retaining resources for their projects and programs. However, when you add the extreme shortage of resources for new and emerging technologies, the problem becomes much worse—and we should all be deeply concerned.

Inspired by construction questions heard while managing tier 1 projects, in part 3 of his series the author explains contractor requirements for project execution, including workforce management, reporting, safety practices, change management and field activities. Each element is described along with humorous stories and lessons learned.

Requirements

Research and development has more pressure to deliver than any other business function. Using the consumer durable product industry as a base, this article will elaborate on four key challenges that R&D projects face—along with countermeasures that an R&D project manager can take.

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In an agile world, team members are empowered to make important decisions within the context of the behavioral architecture, without having to ask permission from supervisors or managers. But these supervisors and managers are coming from a lifetime of learning how to succeed in a hierarchical world, so they will need to leave behind those ingrained lessons. In order for agile to be successful at scale, leaders will need to change.

Is it possible to select the badges that are displayed on our public profiles or do we only display the last 3 badges that we earned? I am working through the PM challenge now and when I hit the guru ...

Many organizations have already begun to experience difficulty recruiting and retaining resources for their projects and programs. However, when you add the extreme shortage of resources for new and emerging technologies, the problem becomes much worse—and we should all be deeply concerned.

New PMs often have a lot of questions they think are weird—questions that can be difficult to ask. In this article, the author reaches into his mailbag to explore a trio of questions raised by our readership on sticky situations faced by project managers.

In this article, schedule variance is modeled to show the comparison and relationship of actual project progress and the schedule baseline. The underlying linear model of the schedule performance index (SPI) is explained and visualized with the budget square chart. The limits of the linear SPI approach are shown, and then an improved non-linear visualization is explored.

As we continue to work remotely and with virtual teams, the number of meetings has increased tremendously. How can we have meetings that are not only productive, but also an efficient use of time? Here are 15 tips to help!

Research and development has more pressure to deliver than any other business function. Using the consumer durable product industry as a base, this article will elaborate on four key challenges that R&D projects face—along with countermeasures that an R&D project manager can take.

You can’t decide to implement organizational agility on a piecemeal basis one project at a time. Instead, you must create an environment where project managers and their teams are empowered, skilled and confident to deliver success in a continuously evolving world. How do you do that?

You're a great project leader, but have you ever tried to go a step beyond to be a legendary project manager? One that can win commitment of stakeholders with just a few words and garner trust and support of the people working around you? Here are some tips...

Negotiating is an extension of building community. You will not get anything you want if the other person feels slighted or if they do not think they are getting an equitable deal. You will have to work harder to get people MORE of what they want so you can have MORE of what you want. Not everything in the negotiation has to be a down-and-out battle between you and the vendor. Be flexible, and the vendor will usually follow suit. Negotiating specifications with a vendor is not easy as you both have your own agendas. This process of negotiating the project’s requirements starts with the first phone call and continues until the last bill is paid.

Robot Process Automation (RPA) is one of the recent practices that is usually combined with Agile adoption as part of Digital Transformations. This webinar analyzes the benefits of RPA, combined with Agile adoption, using a parallel with the introduction of robotization in manufacturing. It is also an analysis of how/if RPA and Artificial Intelligence can be used in Project Management to improve the project delivery process.

Agile is often 'sold' as a way to improve quality of products and services. One of the fundamental Agile principles is that continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Project risks can give negative impacts on project objectives such as delay, cost overruns, decrease in quality and security aspects, then we can observe serious project failures. Risk management aims to identify the possible causes of threats and opportunities, to assess them qualitatively and quantitatively and to propose an action plan for risks deemed critical in order to decrease the undesirable effects on project objectives. Complex projects are affected by numerous risks and opportunities because of their complex organizational plan with a large number of stakeholders, complex planning with a long life-cycle, complex resource management, technical issues, and particular environmental factors.

“May you live in interesting times!” This is an ancient and famous Chinese curse. Today, we do live in interesting times: Our environment is characterized to be Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (VUCA). Change is constant and happens at a frenetic pace. Change poses severe challenges to project managers. It makes team members uncomfortable and may also cause unethical behavior or unprofessional conduct. Mismanaging change can severely impact project success. This very interactive webinar will cover a typical project change scenario and provide you with practical tips and techniques to deliver strong, proactive, leadership and confidently ride the waves of change.

This is in the fourth installment in an 8-part webinar series, A Billion Dollar Project Health Framework, presented by Uri Galimidi. The series covers an advanced yet practical framework which Project Managers can use to assess the health of their projects. The framework consists of eight key project management areas.

Requirements are a key driver for any project and there is a direct relationship between the accuracy of requirements and the outcome of a project. In many cases there is a direct link between scope and requirements, hence requirement definition impacts project scope.

No matter where you are on the career ladder, consider creating a roadmap for moving forward by comparing your current state to the requirements needed to achieve your career goals—and then identify the actions you need to take to make it all happen. Use this template in conjunction with the article What’s Your Career Plan?

While actively participating in mentorship during a project with a local design/build firm, this practitioner compiled an overview of the project management process as detailed in PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). Use this overview with other project managers as a tool to reference in your day-to-day PM activities (as well as share with new project managers).

Use this template to monitor and control the procurement cycle of materials during a project. It helps you track procurements by comparing planned activity dates with actual activity dates, allowing you to forecast/adjust progress.

This template is designed to show projected budget costs for project human resources (a consulting team, for example) and provide a comparative analysis of actual money spent on those resources and hours used to date by those resources. It can be easily updated as desired (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.). The tool provides an immediate illustration of the state of the project at any point along the project life cycle by showing whether the money and hours utilized to date are above, at or below the projected budget amount.

This WBS Generator allows you to create a work breakdown structure by updating an Excel table and clicking a button. Users can create conditional formats to highlight keywords, change the options to modify the look and feel, maintain the WBS with on-the-fly updates, and add second- and third-level boxes. By creating custom conditional formats, project managers focus stakeholder attention to key points in the WBS. Code has been updated to run on Excel 365.